Courage
by ParadoxxFoxx
Summary: When a poor, fast talking, smart mouth middle schooler has a run in with an empousa, the world Ends. Part literally, part figuratively. He's assigned to a quest of with four others to save the gods from being banished to Tartarus by an eons old threat.


I stayed up late the night before The End. Okay, well, not the real end but basically the end. It was The End for me.

Yeah, I never wanted to be a half-blood but I've never had much luck anyways. My name is Emmet. Emmet Grayson Blake. And The End started like this.

 **[...]**

Two A.M. on a Sunday - weird place to start a story, huh? This is when I noticed I wasn't exactly normal.

I lived in a one bedroom apartment with my mom and I slept on the couch. But that's not why I wasn't normal. I was on the Internet on my phone (Using my neighbor's Wi-Fi.) I don't remember much of the night but one of my clearest memories was the lights flickering.

I had been laying on the couch, watching YouTube. And the lights went out, followed by my phone screen warping. I took my earbuds out and the light returned.

"The hell?" I whispered. I sat up and looked out the window. The streetlights were also flickering and now I was scared. The kitchen light turned itself on and back off. For a second, I saw a figure standing in my living room.

"What the fuck?" I asked no one. I got off the couch and took a defensive stance and grabbed a letter opener from the coffee table. Then suddenly I was back on the couch, watching a YouTube video. I turned my phone off, suddenly extremely tired. I went to sleep without a second thought.

 **[...]**

School was even worse. For a few reasons: First off, we got a new girl - which isn't bad for the reasons you might think. Second of all, it's school. I have dyslexia and ADHD so it's not like school was good to me anyways.

I sat down at my desk and pulled my hood over my brown hair. Before the bell rang I played games on my phone and kept my head on my desk. When the bell rang a girl stood by the whiteboard with the teacher. And she was _seriously_ pretty. No, she was beautiful. She had long straight blonde hair and blue eyes. She stood about my height - five foot four - and wore a maroon short sleeved shirt and black leggings.

She made eye contact with me and smiled. When I think about it I'm pretty sure no girl has ever even wanted to look my way.

"Okay, everyone we have a new student!" The teacher said cheerfully. The girl waved.

"Hi, I'm Amelia. But I like to be called Amy." She said. It might've been my imagination but I'm pretty sure that she was sniffing the air. I brushed it off though. She walked towards me and took her seat next to me. I thought I heard the clang of metal on metal but figured it must be the garbage trucks outside.

Class went on but every now and again I caught Amy looking at me. I don't care how beautiful she is, it started to get a bit weird.

When class let out I started towards my next class. Oddly enough, Amy was in all of my classes.

This had gone on for a few days, my lights flicker, I think nothing of it, Amy keeps a close eye on me. Nothing big happened until Thursday. But it may as well happened on Monday.

I was walking to my gym class when I was pulled into the band room. Amy was standing there.

"What the he-" I was cut off by her lips being pushed onto mine. I was shocked but couldn't move. She took my hands and moved them "below sea level". I pulled away and cleared my throat. "Why are my hands on your butt?" She went back to me but I held my hand out. "Ha, no. I mean maybe but not now and _especially_ not at school."

"You're saying no to me?" She asked. My eyes wandered to the mirror behind us. I noticed something wasn't right. "You're _resisting_ me?" I looked at her reflection and saw that her hair was fire. Actual _fire._ I looked to her real hair and saw it looked normal.

"Look, I need to-" Her hands flew to my throat.

" _Half-blood…."_ She snarled. I struggled for breath and squirmed, her grip was tight.

"What?" I managed. She threw me across the room, causing me to hit a cello and break it. I got to my knees and unzipped my blue hoodie and threw it away. She walked towards me, her hair blazing and her legs…. One leg was made of bronze and the other looked like a goat leg. I grabbed a violin and swung it at her, breaking it against her head. She didn't even flinch.

I saw sharp fangs and decided I should do the smart thing: Run like I'm on fire. I turned and sprinted to the other exit and went into the hallway. They were empty and gave me room to run. I looked back and saw Amy walking down the hallway.

I burst through a door and found the drama room. There were a ton of prop weapons so I grabbed a sword in desperation. Amy stood in the doorway - the only exit. I ran at her and jabbed her stomach with the rubber sword. It only seemed to irritate her (I'd be worried if it _did_ hurt her.) I tried to push past her.

"Hey! Someone!" I yelled. Almost immediately, my friend Jay burst out of a classroom. He ran as well as he could on crutches and hit Amy with them. She turned her attention to him and he threw me a glove. I looked at it and saw it had no fingers and there were three holes in between the knuckles.

"Put it on!" Jay yelled while backing away. Amy turned and I slipped the glove on. Purple mist seeped out of the leather and three bronze blades erupted from the knuckles.

Without hesitation, I threw a punch with it. Just before it hit Amy, she disappeared in a fiery blaze.

"What in the hell just happened?" I asked Jay. Sweat trickled down my forehead.

"That's what I wanna know! Follow me!" Jay ditched the crutches and started to run; I followed suit. We traversed the halls and eventually left through a fire exit. We had come to an empty parking lot. Jay fumbled around his wallet and fished out a coin. I tried to get the glove off but it seemed to melt into my flesh.

"Jay, what the hell is going on?" I asked. He dropped the coin onto the ground and turned to me.

"It's complicated. I'll explain in the car." He said.

 _What car?_ I was about to ask but a cab pulled up to us and we entered it. I looked at the wrist with the glove on and saw it and the blades were gone. I tried to buckle up but found no belt. I looked at the driver seat and saw three women.

"Camp Half-Blood," Jay said to them. I remembered Amy said that word. Jay turned to me. "Emmet, you might wanna sit back for while. I have a lot to explain. Also, you know, we're in Missouri and we're going to New York." New York?

"Even at our speeds it'll take a while." One of the drivers said. Her voice was raspy and annoying.

"Emmet. Do you know who the Greek gods are?" I nodded my head, unsure where he was going with this. "Long story short: They exist. Well, so do Roman gods. And Egyptian Gods…. And Norse Gods. And probably - " I cut him off.

"Whoa whoa. What do you mean they exist?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"What do you mean what do I mean?" Jay countered me. I face palmed. I noticed again the glove he gave me disappeared but went back to him.

"You said gods exist. As many questions as this raises, what does it have to do with me?" I explained.

"You're the son of a Greek god." Jay told me. I sat back and thought about that.

"Okay…. Now answer this: What the flying shit did I see in school just now. And why did a girl that wanted to sleep with me try to kill me after I denied her?" I asked. Jay was quick.

"No questions about your dad? Okay. Well, Amelia was an empousa. Empousa are the source of the vampire myths. Basically they kill guys by luring them with their beauty and all that. What I'm having trouble understanding is how you denied her. And also why if you didn't _know_ she was a monster. I mean, I'm glad you did but - "

"Jay! Off topic. Is she dead?" I asked.

"Oh, no. She's far from it. Statistically speaking, you shouldn't even be alive." Jay told me.

"Nice, I'm a statistic." I said as I patted my thighs. I looked out the window and watched the scenery blur past.

"You're acting really calm about all this." Jay pointed out.

"That's because I'm having an existential crisis, my friend." I told him. And I _was._ I was contemplating death and existence. Why do these gods need us, at any moment we could be wiped out by a higher force. We're all going to die some day and all our lives will mean nothing. We will all be forgotten some day. We're as insignificant as a drop of water in an endless ocean…. Holy shit I should probably see a therapist. "Just let me sleep this off. This is heavy."

"That's nothing. When this baby get to camp…. You're gonna see some serious shit."

 **Hey guys, this is another attempt at a story. Hopefully now I should be on a schedule again. I've been depressed for a really long time. And not the 13 year old attention whore depression but serious depression. Don't waste your time pitying me because I'm doing better now and I'm gonna get back to writing.**

 **See you on the flip side.**


End file.
